Looking at alternative computer software solutions for a variety of reasons. This includes price, computer security, virus prevention and reliability.
Here are my notes and great that if it helps you, otherwise please understand what you are doing and not follow blindly.
All works expressed are my own and does not necessarily express the products or organisations mentioned here.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

The Sophos Report on spam in Aug 08 will really make many companies re-look at their anti spam capability, in particular MS Windows based systems.There are a few employees who attempt to inform or complain in the increase number of spam to the ICT managers, but these are ignored or placed in a low level of importance. Worst, I heard that one MS Exchange based organisation decided that nothing much can be done and employees were to delete spams on their own.

Some of the spams are Agent-HNY Trojan Horse, is disguised as the Penguin Panic arcade game for Apple iPhones, EncPk-CZ Trojan which pretended to be a Microsoft security patch, and the Invo-Zip malware, which masqueraded as a notice of a failed parcel delivery from firms such as UPS.

Spam origins are ranked highest from US, Russia, Turkey and China. If more desktops for critical areas are migrated to Linux, then these desktops can be proctected.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Filed bugs:#94603 because the File ->Open dialog didnt appear till I reboot.#94604 because the drag and copy did not show a plus sign.#94605 because the solver tool in Calc doesnt allow slection of multiple cells for "By Changing cells" option.#94607 because the Impress is not able to play slides with graphics smoothly. See Image below.

#94609 because the Drawing tool didnt allow wrapping of images around 3D objects.

Noticeable changes in OOo3

Start Centre Dialog (appears when OOo is open without any documents).

Native Tables can be added to Impress slides. This includes Table design styles in the Task Menu.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Content Management Systems (CMS) like Drupal have been popular as it provided a relatively powerful framework for customisation. As Drupal is upgraded, the user customised modules are protected to ensure that it can continue to work. Currently many CMS administrators fear upgrading their CMS as things will break due to extensive customisations.

Drupal version 5.x and 6.x currently supports PHP 5.2. This provides better security and performance. Did I mention performance? Currently due to Drupal modularity, it can be tweak for performance to the max. This depends on the web server, PHP and MySQL settings. By default, non registered visitors use Drupal cached pages which reduces load on Drupal.See a typo3, Joomla and Drupal and part II comparison.

Installing Hylafax to achieve mass faxing. You need to know what is a fax and how it operates before proceeding here.

Currently the Ubuntu does not detect Lenovo R60's built in modem. So I did not get to actually test if the fax server works. The Thinkwiki site didnt show that R60's modem can work. However 2 years ago, Hylafax could what I tried to set out doing today on a PC with Modem attached.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

With the OSCC MAMPU success of the MyGOSSCON 2007, lots of government OSS projects have started to be highlighted. This year's MyGOSSCON 08, will be held on 5-6 Nov 2008 at the PICC, Putrajaya.

Economy and jobs for OSS

Will all this move to OSS help the economy? Malaysia is a country surrounded by Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand and depends a lot of its revenue from trades. Malaysia have a modest broadband availability and quality of service with a largely open Internet policy.

In regards to any ICT procurements, the cost can be reduced by;

Preference of alternative/cheaper software

Preference of software that reduces maintenance and security

Currently Malaysia buys too much of software. This leads to:

Lost opportunity of exposure to building enterprise/advanced applications

Preference of foreign systems to local ICT solutions when making procurement decisions

If more OSS is introduced;

Malaysia can be a net exporter of ICT solutions (increase in jobs, more revenue)

Increase in skilled ICT workforce (increase in local and foreign jobs)

Collaborative work on a global level (increase job opportunities)

Nature of OSS is productivity (a wider number of solutions will be available, more busines/jobs)

Increase in home based workers. Freelance, home makers, students, retiree and those with lots of free time can take part in many more business as the barrier entry is lowered. Cheaper software on any platform can be easily accessible for Internet based business.